Possible T. Rex ancestor discovered in Venezuela

Possible T. Rex ancestor discovered in Venezuela

A new carnivorous dinosaur was unearthed in Venezuela that could be a possible ancestor of T.Rex, according to researchers who discovered two leg bones of the creature.

It’s been quite a year for new dinosaur species discoveries, and researchers have unearthed yet another new creature: Tachiraptor admirabilis, a feisty little predator roughly the size of a grey kangaroo.

Two leg bones of the Tachiraptor, named after the Venezuelan state of Tachira in which the remains were found, were discovered high in the Andes Mountains along the western border for Venezuela. Only a few other fossils have been found in that area, making the find rare and unique.

Tachiraptor was relatively small, measuring 4.9 to 6.5 feet long from head to tail. It lived in the early Jurassic period about 201 million years ago, roaming the Pangaea supercontinent looking for prey.

Tachiraptor probably preyed upon any smaller animal he could catch,” said Max Langer, the study’s co-author and a paleontologist at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil. This includes nearby finds of Laquintasaura, an herbivore that traveled in packs.

Langer added that Tachiraptor was probably an ancestor of larger carnivorous predators such as T. Rex. Tachiraptor had survived the mass extinction at the end of the Triassic period one million years before, and its features could help researchers understand the evolution of dinosaurs following the disaster. 

Tachiraptor lived in a relatively unstable environment. “Pangeae was in the process of breaking up back then,” said Langer. “There was a lot of volcanic activity around, and in the valley, [there was] a meandering river, along which were patches of forest where this dinosaur lived.”

Future research on Tachiraptor is difficult because of the climate where the fossils were found. The area is remote, mountainous, and covered in thick vegetation that makes digging very difficult. The fossils were originally found when constructions crews attempted to dig a road. Scientists are hoping that the recent discovery of Tachiraptor will encourage more excavations in the area to determine the early Jurassic period’s evolutionary patterns and ecosystem.

The study was published in the journal Royal Society Open Science on Oct. 8.

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